Dear Sisters and Brothers, 

In addition to the Election Notices in this month’s issue, I wanted to inform you of recent events that will affect our members. Many of you know about the Arbitration with Bonneville Power Administration to determine if BPA could utilize Bare Hand work methods. The parties received notice of the arbitrator’s award on March 17, 2008.

The arbitrator awarded BPA the ability to establish a Bare Hand crew comprised of employees who volunteer to perform the work under the conditions negotiated prior to the award. (Limitations were agreed which allow Bare Hand methods only on 230kV and above as well as a restriction to not utilize Bare Hand methods off of a helicopter.) The Union and BPA must still meet to negotiate the work rules that will be utilized for performing this work. By our estimate, this could take as long as six to eight months to be completed then BPA would be required to train the workers in the agreed upon work rules.

Many of our members may be wondering how this affects workers outside of BPA. Currently, state laws in Oregon and Washington prohibit Bare Hand Live Line work. BPA is only allowed to perform this work due to Federal OSHA being the governing body. Even Contractor crews operating on BPA property are covered by state OSHA agencies and therefore unable to utilize this work practice. 

The Union suspects there will be BPA members who volunteer to perform this work. Even though the Union fought for the membership to avoid the use of this work practice, we will be better served to have current members volunteer to perform the work. Otherwise, we may face a new recruitment of employees who may not have any loyalty to our Union. Our membership will need to treat our union Brothers and Sisters who volunteer with the utmost respect. To do anything different will only serve to create negative feelings among the Bare Hand crew of not belonging to the Union and will lead to hate and discontent between our members. We must not allow this ruling to divide our membership. 

The Union will continue to support our current legislation of prohibiting the use of Bare Hand work in Oregon and Washington. We truly believe the safest way to perform work is either Hot Sticking or de-energizing the lines. Please remember to never compromise your safety when working; your family depends on it.